The room assigned to Adrian excited his fresh surprise; though he assured himself that he would be amazed at nothing further, when he saw, lying upon a table in the middle of the floor, two complete suits of clothing, apparently placed there by the thoughtful host for his guest to use. They were not of the latest style, but perfectly new, and bore the stamp of a well-known tailor of his own city.
“Where did he get them, and so soon? What a mammoth of a house it is, though built of logs. And isn’t it the most fitting and beautiful of houses, after all? Whence came those comfortable chairs? And the books? Most of all, where and how did he get that wonderful picture over that magnificent log mantel? It looks like a room made ready for the unexpected coming of some prodigal son! I’m that, sure enough; but not of this household. If I were—well, maybe—Oh! hum!”
The lad crossed the floor and gazed reverently at the solitary painting which the room contained. A marvelously lifelike head of the Man of Sorrows, bending forward and gazing upon the onlooker with eyes of infinite tenderness and appealing. Beneath it ran the inscription, “Come Unto Me”; and in one corner was the artist’s signature—a broken pine branch.
“Whew! I wonder if that fellow ran away from home because he loved a brush and paint tube! What sort of a spot have I strayed into, anyway? A paradise? Um! I wish ‘the mater’ could see me now. She’d not be so unhappy over her unworthy son, maybe. Bless her, anyhow. If everybody had been like her—”
He finished his soliloquy before an open window, through which he could see the summit of the bare mountain that crowned the centre of the island, and was itself crowned by a single pine tree. Though many of its branches had been lopped away, enough were left to form a sort of spiral stairway up its straight trunk to its lofty top.
“What a magnificent flagstaff that would make! I’d like to see Old Glory floating there. Believe I’ll suggest it to the Magician—that’s what this woodlander is—and doubtless he’ll attend to that little matter. Shades of Aladdin!”
Adrian was so startled that he dropped into a chair, the better to sustain himself against further Arabian-Nights-like discoveries.
It was a flagstaff! Somebody was climbing it—Margot! Up, up, like a squirrel, her blonde head appearing first on one side, then the other, a glowing budget strapped to her back.
Adrian gasped. No sailor could have been more fleet or sure-footed. It seemed but a moment before that slender figure had scaled the topmost branch and was unrolling the brilliant burden it had borne. The Stars and Stripes, of course. Adrian would have been bitterly disappointed if it had been anything else this agile maiden hoisted from that dizzy height.
